America’s Largest Export: Bigger Government by Bill Buppert

“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

– George Bernard Shaw

It’s funny how the official message of the land of the free and home of the brave is the bigger the government the better. How many times do the bipedal human parakeets on television news squawk about the need for a more stable central government to make all the bugbears go away? How often does this meme haunt any conversation about bringing stability to the Middle East and especially in the countries that the American military is currently occupying and trashing? Official Washington on both sides of the aisle are always cheerleading the latest government expansion and increase.

They don’t know anything else. Freedom of action without government permission simply does not compute for them. The bubble of insulating propaganda and self-congratulation puts virtual cotton in their ears. They are deaf to any concept of a non-police state social arrangement. Scratch a Republican or Democrat or Green or even a beltway Libertarian and they are either tone-deaf to freedom and liberty at the atomistic level or terrified of the implications for their power.

Afghanistan as a very anarchic country really short-circuits the Beltway meme that ALL humans wish to be corralled into tax jurisdictions and looked after by benevolent police states that will fine, kidnap, cage, maim or kill any cattle that don’t comply with the program. We discovered the same thing in trying to tame Somalia militarily that it was simply impossible to conduct a capitol thrust with overwhelming military power and sue for peace and the Somalis simply are not interested in centralized authority. The Afghan conflict is the same, unless the US slaughters every man, women and child within its borders and creates an American suburban dystopia with imported humans, no Afghan central government will control anything outside of Kabul. Instead of wringing our hands over how to solve that problem, why don’t we simply look at what has created such a decentralized and distributed society. Even when the Taliban were in power, there were sectors of the country no Afghan nationalist could safely go much like the Appalachian mountains or wilder grow areas in the inland mountain West in the US where even today Federal government officials fear to tread.

Mountainous terrain and liberty seem to have a moderately causal relationship when we look at the Basques in Spain, Kurds, Chechens and other mountain communities that seem to be able to magically evade central control.

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Excellent post, as always Bill! Love the quote from Shaw though I find it greatly ironic as Shaw has no problem with robbing Peter whatsoever. He was a member of that particularly sneaky and loathsome sect of socialism – the Fabians and held some very despicable opinions, which you can hear straight from his own mouth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvsf2MUKRQ

It’s more than a conference…more than a festival…it’s our future! Why? It leaves behind the least attractive aspects of conference and festivals while encouraging a big participatory element. Libertopia also is more than “libertarian.” It’s voluntaryist to the core – bypassing and transcending politics completely. Finally, it’s kind of a model for us and a starting-point for a society of the future. It’s a kernel of something we’ll need more of very soon – especially as we watch coercive institutions begin to implode one by one. And that’s part of the reason we chose San Diego as our home this year.